Carrie

With the announcement of Carrie making a return to the Broadway circuit after a short-lived disastrous first go-round, I'm left holding my head and wondering, "Why?" Horror musicals are like your socially awkward cousin. You know, the one who talks too much and quite possibly bears an uncanny resemblance to Franklin from Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Is it fair to hold the horror musical to the same standards as the dastardly horror film remakes that seem to be happening in droves? I don't think I can help it. Few horror musicals have been born from an original idea which leaves me with the same funny feeling. I'm well aware that remakes have been happening since the dawn of time but this kind of remake is worse. When you add the word 'musical' to anything it evokes a horrible visceral reaction within many people. Adding it to the word horror just seems like a bastardized and shrieking kind of wrong.

Isn't the comical genius of Young Frankenstein and Evil Dead perfect as is? Young Frankenstein was a parody. So, is a mugging Dr. Frankenstein belting out a song called Transylvania Mania anything other than pointless and silly? The film Cannibal! The Musical, another intentional parody by beloved low-budget Troma Entertainment, has more class by comparison. Even Cronenberg's The Fly has been made into an opera, but they don't have me fooled. Adding the smooth vowel-ridden word to the title doesn't soften the blow. In fact, it's almost more cruel. However, Repo! The Genetic Opera would probably disagree with me.

(Old-school reprint from Cinematical. Happy Halloween!)


Wow, this is going to be hard for two reasons. On one hand I'll find it tough to rank my very favorite Stephen King movies because the ones I love ... I really love. On the other hand there's been a whole LOT of rotten King flicks churned out over the years -- and I actually like some of those, too! But as a lifelong King kook I think I'm able to separate the wheat from the chaff -- even if, yes it's true, I actually sort of enjoyed Tobe Hooper's The Mangler. (It's just so enjoyably stupid!) So with that I bring you my own personal picks for the best Stephen King adaptations yet (not counting TV shows, mini-series or short films).

Christine (1983) -- Yes, the book is better and sure, a few important things were monkeyed with on the way from page to screen, but there's so much I do like about John Carpenter's adaptation that it makes the speed bumps a lot easier to handle. From the filmmaker's creepy score to an excellent lead performance by Keith Gordon, the flick's just got an admirably bad-ass attitude. Stripped down to its essence, Christine is not much more than another "geek fights back" revenge-centric horror flick, but Carpenter makes the movie his own with a solid production design, a few excellent set pieces and a pace that moves at an appreciable clip. Plus that car is just so damn cool.

Pet Sematary (1989) -- Just about every hardcore horror geek I know holds Pet Sematary in pretty high regard, and just one visit with this bleak and unflinching piece of pulp horror will explain why. It's a remarkably grim and unapologetic tale of dead cats, cute kids and a patch of land that, well, it resurrects dead tissue is what it does. And if you've read even one "back from the dead" story, then you know they never end well. (Pet Sematary, both the book and the movie, packs one doozy of a dark denouement.) OK, so maybe Dale Midkiff and Denise Crosby aren't exactly the rock-solid thespians you'd want for a screenplay this devilishly mean-spirited, but the pair do what they can, plus they've got good ol' Fred Gwynne supplying background color by the bucketful. (And don't forget about poor sickly Zelda! Yuck.)

Carrie (1976) -- The very first (and arguably one of the very best) of the Stephen King movies, Carrie hit the screens courtesy of a young Brian De Palma, and the director pulled out a big bag of Hitchcockian tricks to bring the story to the silver screen. It's about a socially bankrupt young girl who tries to cobble together a normal social life ... much to the chagrin of some snotty she-bullies and a resoundingly devout lunatic of a mother. Some might say the flick takes a long while to get where it's going, but between the prom night finale and the graveside stinger, Carrie more than delivers its share of grisly goods. Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie make it watchable all by themselves, but De Palma is the real star here. (OK, De Palma and a young, evil John Travolta.)

Even though the horror industry is generally male-dominated, we all know that the best part about it is the women. Many men I know count their first crush as a scream queen--adored not only for her body (usually naked) but her brains. It takes a lot to be left standing at the end of a blood bath! For me, there were several scream queens who were my heroes growing up. I never related to Barbie and I didn't fit in with the other girls. The scream queen is sexy--often unconventional, which makes her appear attainable but we can also relate to her. She's sometimes silly and fun which is why we want her alive at the end of a film. The best scream queen embraces her title and stays true to the genre--delivering the best and worst lines over and over again with enthusiasm. And even though she may be killed off dozens of times, she puts up one hell of a fight 'til the very end.

While there are a dozen lists of the best and worst of everything in horror, Fangoria has taken on the admirable task of naming 50 Influential Scream Queens. This is only part one, but so far it proves to be an excellent overview of the loud and proud ladies of horror. My personal favorites include Vampira, Piper Laurie, Alice Krige and Meg Foster.

By Eugene Novikov

Jennifer's Body is getting panned in some circles for the alleged tragic flaw of a horror movie not being particularly scary. They're mostly right -- Diablo Cody's genre follow-up to Juno doesn't really elevate the heart rate very often. But I think that's because it tips to the "high school" side of the "high school horror" balance; it's more of a teen drama with a bloody metaphorical twist than a full-on horror flick.

That may disappoint some fans, but it sort of gets at why high school horror movies work so well, so often. It's a cliche that "high school is scary," but movies that make a connection between the reasons high school is scary in real life and whatever monstrosity happens to be stalking or haunting the characters are the ones that tend to leave the biggest impression.

In honor of Jennifer's Body, which I think will be unjustly maligned in the weeks to come, here's a list of some high school horror movies that figured this out -- and a few that were just plain fun.

1. Ginger Snaps - The movie's IMDb plot summary helpfully begins: "This film uses werewolfism as a metaphor for puberty." Well, yeah -- though it is generally considered polite not to lead with something like that. (Sorry.) But it's not all allegorical navel-gazing. Ginger Snaps is an elegant, harsh piece of teen horror that brutally plays on teenage insecurities, and is a pretty good werewolf flick too. It's a shame that director John Fawcett largely disappeared into the (better-paying, I hear) abyss of television.

Read the rest at Cinematical!

April 07 reprint!

Wow, this is going to be hard for two reasons. On one hand I'll find it tough to rank my very favorite Stephen King movies because the ones I love ... I really love. On the other hand there's been a whole LOT of rotten King flicks churned out over the years -- and I actually like some of those, too! But as a lifelong King kook I think I'm able to separate the wheat from the chaff -- even if, yes it's true, I actually sort of enjoyed Tobe Hooper's The Mangler. (It's just so enjoyably stupid!) So with that I bring you my own personal picks for the best Stephen King adaptations yet (not counting TV shows, mini-series or short films).

Christine (1983) -- Yes, the book is better and sure, a few important things were monkeyed with on the way from page to screen, but there's so much I do like about John Carpenter's adaptation that it makes the speed bumps a lot easier to handle. From the filmmaker's creepy score to an excellent lead performance by Keith Gordon, the flick's just got an admirably bad-ass attitude. Stripped down to its essence, Christine is not much more than another "geek fights back" revenge-centric horror flick, but Carpenter makes the movie his own with a solid production design, a few excellent set pieces and a pace that moves at an appreciable clip. Plus that car is just so damn cool.

Pet Sematary (1989) -- Just about every hardcore horror geek I know holds Pet Sematary in pretty high regard, and just one visit with this bleak and unflinching piece of pulp horror will explain why. It's a remarkably grim and unapologetic tale of dead cats, cute kids and a patch of land that, well, it resurrects dead tissue is what it does. And if you've read even one "back from the dead" story, then you know they never end well. (Pet Sematary, both the book and the movie, packs one doozy of a dark denouement.) OK, so maybe Dale Midkiff and Denise Crosby aren't exactly the rock-solid thespians you'd want for a screenplay this devilishly mean-spirited, but the pair do what they can, plus they've got good ol' Fred Gwynne supplying background color by the bucketful. (And don't forget about poor sickly Zelda! Yuck.)

Carrie (1976) -- The very first (and arguably one of the very best) of the Stephen King movies, Carrie hit the screens courtesy of a young Brian De Palma, and the director pulled out a big bag of Hitchcockian tricks to bring the story to the silver screen. It's about a socially bankrupt young girl who tries to cobble together a normal social life ... much to the chagrin of some snotty she-bullies and a resoundingly devout lunatic of a mother. Some might say the flick takes a long while to get where it's going, but between the prom night finale and the graveside stinger, Carrie more than delivers its share of grisly goods. Sissy Spacek and Piper Laurie make it watchable all by themselves, but De Palma is the real star here. (OK, De Palma and a young, evil John Travolta.)